freddie robins

Today I have been looking at the Freddie Robins project "how to make a piece of work when you are too tired to make decisions" . Robins conceived the idea for this when her daughter was only a few months old, and due to lack of sleep and time constraints she devised a way of working that eliminated the decision making process from her machine knitted textile art.

She achieved this by using 3 dice to select predefined choices. One die was to select the colour of the yarns, one to give numbers for the stitches and rows, and one to decide the technique that was to be knitted.

The results are an interesting reflection of a serendipitous piece of work, and also of how many smaller elements can be assembled to create a larger piece.

Although different in many ways from what I am hoping to achieve, the idea of the project is an interesting one, and has strong links with the idea of random theory and probability, which is a possible way forward for my work.

Obviously, Robins has come from a very different starting point and so her aims and objectives are not the same as mine. Although Robins used the dice to determine a random pattern, she did make decisions that were preassigned to each number thrown and these decisions were altered as the process developed, in order to achieve 'more consistently successful results".

I am quite surprised to find how much I like the idea of the random nature of the designs, but not the designers interference in the process. This is something I think I will battle with in my own work. Relinquishing aesthetic control is difficult for a designer, especially when my main aim is to produce something that is both mathematically viable and an object of beauty.

shima versus silvereed - the battle of the machines

I have been thinking a lot recently about which techniques and machinery I want to use in my creative project, and thought I'd better start writing it down in order to make some sense of it.

There seems to be so many possibilities that it baffles me deciding in which direction to go. The lack of decision on a final product ultimately makes it difficult to decide what equipment to use.

At Uni we have domestic Silvereed knitting machines and Dubied Industrial machines. There is of course, the option of finding someone to lend me their Shima for a few days.....?

I have turned over the question of the Shima Seiki in my mind for some time now, and think that I have finally resolved my dilemma about the pros and cons of using one.

Having had the amazing oppurtunity of doing my BA at a University that gave me the experience of designing and processing work on this machinery, I feel that I can confidently say that this is not the correct route for me to go down with this MA, or most certainly not at this stage and time.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, one of my main aims for doing my Masters is to develop a working practice/ sustainable business from whatever product I develop. Using a Shima is neither physically or financially practical for me. Having spoken to the Director of Textile Studies at my old University, and a Senior knit lecturer at Kingston the practicalities of designing and using a machine at another university are limiting.
I made enquiries at Shima Seiki UK about the possibility of owning the software programme, designing at home and then 'bureauing' out to a company to knit the designs, as there is in other textile disciplines. I was told that the software is not sold seperate to the machinery and if it was would cost about £26,000! So that answers that question! Also, as brilliant as this equipment is, it does not lend itself well to several of the techniques that I am keen to take forward...for example, the knitted pockets are achievable on the Shima, but it is an impossibility to stop the machine and open the bed in order to place things inside, as I have done on the Dubied.

So on to the Dubied. I have a love hate relationship with these machines. These days it is more love than hate as I have become more confident and familiar with their sensitive quirks! I definately want to make use of these machines as they can achieve beautiful quality knits, and work both finer and chunkier than the domestic machines available. They have a double needlebed which allows me to work on just the front, or just the back of the knitting and to close the beds and knit across both, allowing greater versatility in my work. However, they don't allow me to hold stitches easily, which is something I really need to be able to do in order to create 3D effects.

After completing Year 1 of my degree course at the University of Derby, progressing to working on a Dubied in Year 2 and then onto using the Shima in my third year, I had dismissed the idea of ever working on a domestic knitting machine ever again. That was until I visited Knit-1 in August, and whilst there brushing up my skills on an industrial machine knitting course, I was wowed by the work that was being produced on the humble domestic machine. I think I had been put off by all my first year dropped stitches and clumsy attempts at fairisle using horrid coloured acrylic yarn that I never pushed the boundaries beyond the 1980's home knit conotations and realised the full potential of the machine.

Ironically enough most of my research and experimentation into constructing three dimensional knitted fabrics begins with partial knitting or short rowing, a technique most easily achieved on the domestic machine through the use of the Russell levers /Holding button. This allows me to hold some of the stitches, whilst knitting on others, exactly as you would in hand knitting when stitches would be held by moving them to a seperate needle or stitch holder.

The other advantage to the domestic machine is that you can add the ribber attachment to create a doublebed machine. This is not quite as smooth as the dubied, but something that opens up possibilities of having two needlebeds and the holding button on one machine.

The other technique I am interested in experimenting with is turning the knitting on the machine. When you knit on a machine there is garter stitch one side and stocking stitch the other. By the use of a garter bar you can pull all the stitches off the machine, turn them around and (hopefully!) put the knitting back onto the correct needles to resume knitting. Therefore creating stripes of alternate stitches.
I found this brilliantly innovative site which shows me how to make my own garter bar out of a metre rule and some hair clips....watch this space for the results.